by JM Guillen
The scarlet light shone dimly in the darkness, the only illumination.
“Mike, are you back there?” Her words sounded harried, laced with the fear and fervor of combat. “Did you kill that thing?”
“I—” The word felt leaden upon my tongue. I smacked my lips, as if it tasted poorly.
I nodded.
“There’s more on the other side. Zealators.” She glanced at me over one shoulder.
“Okay.” I noticed that one of my blades had fallen to the ground. I bent, somewhat stiffly, and picked it up.
“I say we should just go. This aperture takes up the entire hallway and exits on the roof. They can’t possibly pass it until I drop it.” She paused. “We could hop into the elevator and head on down.”
Your levels are almost nominal, Alpha, Rachel linked. I’d like to reopen the idea of modulating this aberration.
“Yes.” I shook my head, though I couldn’t realize exactly which one of them I spoke to. I felt as if I thought faster than I could possibly speak, as if words weren’t quite my tool of choice.
“There’s a problem though. On the other side of this aperture, there’s about fifteen Zealators. They all hid in the suites until the elevator door opened.”
“Trap.” I nodded as understanding began to dawn. “They waited here for us.” I smacked my lips as I spoke.
“Right.” She tilted her head and gave me an odd look. “So I would say we can go on, except that I recognized one of them.”
“You did?”
“Yep.” She nodded. “Isabella Juarez, Irrational 6604. She didn’t quite look like the old hag you sent in the patch, but it was definitely her. Same eyes, same face.”
“What… what did she look like?” I blinked, confused again. Didn’t people look like themselves?
Bishop, your cognitive capabilities seem a little off kilter. Could you have been drugged?
Maybe, I thought.
Let me see what I can do. I could almost see Rachel blow a loose strand of hair from her face. You’ve produced far too much Triiodothyronine.
“Young. Crazy.” Delacruz paused. “She looked like [the devil’s whore.]”
“We need her.” I spoke before I truly thought. I couldn’t remember why that might be so. She was—
Dangerous.
I could remember whispers of her the more I thought. I remembered her cackling over Max’s death, remembered how she taunted us from the shadows. Isabella had been truly cracked, a depraved fucking bitch.
“I thought you might say that. The Designates said we might take possession of one of their operatives. Also, back at the Corvus, you said they might have intel.”
“She will.” I nodded. “If anyone will know something, she will.”
“Well, this is a chance at her.” She gestured toward the scarlet light. “But if that’s the case, I’ve gotta take this aperture down.”
“And fifteen goons wait on the other side of it.” I sighed. “That’s the play but wait a sec.”
“Yeah?” Delacruz tapped the Crown augment that hovered behind her head. “So you can get out all the secret badass-ery you keep in your pocket?”
“I have some crazy ideas,” I acknowledged. “I’m linking the cadre, and we can all discuss.” I grinned over the link, as my plan began to form.
“Copy that, Alpha.” Delacruz replied. “I’m all about crazy ideas.”
“I know. You’re the group’s ‘fiery Latina.’” I made air quotes.
Delacruz laughed.
4
Moments later, Operation Somehow Interrogate A Madwoman was a go.
Delacruz and I crept to opposite sides of the hall and crouched. I pulled both disruptor pistols, set the focus as narrow as I possibly could, and the force to maximum. She readied herself with the gatekeeper crossbow and spent a couple of moments linking with Rachel about which viral mecha she should use in order to pull off the plan.
Problem is the darkness, Delacruz linked to both Rachel and I. Can you figure out how our optical systems got shut down?
I just don’t know. I felt frustration boil through Rachel. It’s just like what happened before, whatever Amir pulled.
If that’s the case, then the effect should fade. I glanced toward Sofia, grimly. Although probably not in time.
That means when I drop the aperture, there’s going to be a moment of darkness.
I know. I don’t like it. I frowned and then gave her a half shrug. It doesn’t change what we have to do.
I suppose that’s true, she sighed as she linked.
If you’re good to go, Delacruz, it’s on your mark.
Complying now.
Less than a second later, the aperture fell.
Five minutes before, there had been perhaps fifteen Zealators on the other side of the aperture. Now, my first impression was that more than twenty of the crazed assholes stood in the hallway.
Some held automatic weapons while others went either unarmed or had their weapons sheathed. Two had flashlights that shone in the darkness of the hallway.
The moment the aperture went down, we heard their pitched discussions. Like everything else, the sound waves from those discussions had been traveling through the aperture and out onto the roof. Now, however, we heard exclamations of surprise as they began to turn their weapons toward us.
Yet I’d already triggered the Adept.
The aperture hadn’t even completely fallen before I started to fire, sending kinetic bursts into the group. I used my most powerful shots with the knowledge that any whom I struck in the head or chest would never get up again.
“There!” The one closest to Delacruz turned his automatic weapon toward her and began to fire.
Before he even finished his war-cry, though, I had him on the ground.
This had the side effect of bringing their attention to me.
“Slaughter the bitch if you wish!” keened a high-pitched voice. “But Michael Bishop has a destiny! Bring him to me!”
That didn’t sound creepy at all.
I turned toward the wailing woman, though I knew who I’d see before she ever came into view.
But…
But Delacruz had been right.
On our last encounter, Isabella Juarez had been a crone. The Facility didn’t know the old woman’s age exactly, but she’d been entirely gray when I saw her last.
That was no longer the case.
Isabella seemed to be no more than twenty-two, and if I’d seen her outside of this place, she would’ve turned my head. Her long, dark hair shone. Her skin held the color of coffee with cream, and she wore a white, tunic-style dress that revealed far more than it hid.
Everything about her exuded sex; the way she stood, the manner in which she canted one eye at me.
She breathed sensuality.
For the briefest of seconds I wondered at the monstrosity she’d set upon me. Dressed like that, I had no doubt the erotic tendencies of the miscreation had somehow been tied into Isabella and her own Irrational capabilities.
As the half-clad madwoman cackled, a dozen Zealators crept toward me.
I felt certain these intended to delicately escort me to their mistress.
Regardless of the glorious destiny Isabella had in mind for me, Delacruz remembered her duty. Sofia did what she did best, what she’d been born to do.
She shot the madwoman in the thigh and ported her back to the Corvus.
Mike!
At her link, I rolled and dropped into the aperture she set beneath me. I had a moment of vertigo as I rolled down into the aperture and popped out from the left.
Into the Corvus.
“Bishop!” Rachel cried in a panic as I appeared. She lay on the floor, her nose bloodied.
That blood cried my name. It sang…
“Fuck… you!” Wyatt pulled a hand back to strike at Isabella, who had apparently brought the fight to the ship.
“Celeas’Elhia!” The woman lurched forward, her left hand in a claw. “Show him! Show
this fool that he is little more than a sack for breeding!” She slapped her hand to his forehead and cried terrible, unpronounceable blasphemies.
Wyatt roared and trembled as she bore him to the ground. His entire body shook, he shrieked, and his voice burned with some awful mixture of pleasure and pain.
Isabella’s eyes dripped blood.
Wyatt whimpered.
She reveled in the moment, seeming to drink Wyatt’s agony. Her hips thrashed against him, and her cries became less furious and more bestial, wanton.
Enough. Anya stepped behind Isabella, one hand held upright. Upon it, a white glove which extended to her elbow and held a circlet of input controls at the wrist. She touched the neural lacuna to the back of the madwoman’s head.
The Irrat’s fury went silent as soon as Anya applied her gloved hand to the back of her skull.
My Preceptor buried four fingers into the madwoman’s dark hair. With her other hand, she depressed the small button at her wrist.
A scarlet flash of light burst from Anya’s glove.
Isabella’s limbs jerked spastically, as if she’d been hit with a defibrillator. Then she went still.
“Fuck…” Wyatt panted and stared up at me, half mad. “That was…”
“Yeah.” I extended him a hand. “She got me too. Summoned in an aberration.”
I miss anything? Delacruz landed on her backside with a thump that sounded solid enough to hurt.
The aperture closed.
We got her. I gave Delacruz a manic grin. With the lacuna, we can sift through her memories. See what we can find.
The Crown prompt came simultaneously for the cadre.
Crown Augment detected. Do you wish to connect to Petrov-32-8sx?
“All of us.” I gazed around at my cadre. “We don’t have time to sit around and talk data afterward.” I logged into the Crown Augment and felt a subtle snick behind my right ear.
“Makes sense.” Rachel wiped the blood from her nose and stood.
In the upper left hand corner of my visual range, a small blue light blinked once, twice, and then held steady.
Her memories are… Anya frowned. Fragmented. Her mind is not whole.
“No shit.” Wyatt still trembled just a bit. “That chick is broken.”
“Do you have any memories the lacuna can bring up?” I massaged the back of my neck. I hadn’t guessed that someone could be too crazy for the device. If this didn’t work, we’d just have to slap her beneath one of Wyatt’s stasis fields and leave her for the Designates. I doubted seriously that Isabella would willingly divulge intel.
Older engrams remain… mostly whole. Anya wriggled her nose a bit as she gazed into her interface. I can log us into the latest whole structures, if you like, Alpha. We can scroll forward from there.
“Yes.” I glanced around at my cadre until my gaze rested on Rachel. “But…”
“But?” Rachel raised an eyebrow.
“But time is of the essence. If we sit here processing engrams, searching for clues, how much time will that take?”
“Well…” Rachel hedged. “I mean, I don’t know how many engrams we’re processing here. But for the most part, you’ll experience them as quickly as you experience your own memories.”
“So, not like a patch?” Wyatt scratched his beard.
“No.” Rachel clarified, “It will be as if these are your memories. So processing them will be quick, but not instant.”
Alpha, if you prefer, I can set a system warning to let us know if we expend too much time here.
“That’s a good idea.” I nodded at Anya. “Let’s check back in fifteen minutes, if possible. We’ll see what we have and decide if we can move forward.”
Understood, Alpha. Anya pressed an indicator on her wrist, and the blue light in the upper corner of my vision began to blink rapidly.
It expanded into my vision and filled everything I knew.
I was myself no more.
5
Time and place unknown
“He’s a dirty Yucateco.” Renee glared across the bar and scoffed at the man. “I don’t care how cute he is. No, thank you.”
“He’s beyond cute.” I smiled at him and pretended to be a woman who knew the nature of these things, who could flirt with a stranger and not get flustered.
Well, not quite a stranger.
“You talked to him the other night, didn’t you? He was in here with his weird friends.” She tossed her hair and took another drink.
“Maybe. A little.” I scowled at her. “If I did, it wasn’t a mistake.”
I couldn’t help that Renee happened to be an idiot.
Ignacio was beautiful.
Tonight he wore tight, dark jeans, a white shirt he’d opened down to his chest, and a dark ponytail.
Most evenings, he sat at Hector’s, a small bar across town from campus. It was a smoky, shadowy place, where I loved going so I could pretend I wasn’t a college girl.
I’d seen Ignacio there before. I’d felt his eyes on me too, but he’d never approached me, never even tried to dance with me. He’d sit confidently, take a drink or two, and talk with the girls who came to him.
Sometimes he left with one. Or two. Other times, he left alone.
“Come on,” Renee pouted. “Dance with me.”
“I’ll look like an idiot.”
“You know he’ll watch you more if you’re dancing.”
“I’m too drunk.” I shook my head.
“You’re never too drunk. And you’re a wonderful dancer.” Before I could even open my mouth to object further, she grabbed my hand and led me onto the floor.
Sometimes, I suspected Renee liked dancing with me more than she liked the boys that watched.
We were… those girls. We always danced together, drank together, sometimes kissed at the bar. Never anything serious, it was just to laugh at the silly boys who got too drunk to be men.
But tonight, I was the one who’d had too much.
Renee spun me around and ground herself against me, and I just…
I just went with it.
The music pounded, pulsed around us.
Renee wriggled against me, and we laughed and laughed.
And he stood there but not for long. Ignacio moved like a lean shadow, and his eyes gleamed.
“Dance with me.” He extended a hand, and the beginnings of a smile lurked at the edge of his mouth.
I had nothing to say. I stood mute, as if I had no choice in the matter.
But I took his hand.
Ignacio never said a word. He moved my body until I felt as drunk on him as I was on liquor. We danced in the smoky half-light, and he moved me, made me gasp.
He could have done anything he wanted.
I wanted to be clever, to say something mysterious, something coy. But oh…
Oh, his eyes.
They burned black, burned with everything and Nothing all at once.
“I can promise you one thing,” he said with a mischievous grin. “After one dance with me, you’ll never—”
***
“—see my friends anymore?” I peered through the crowd, a touch anxious. Had Renee abandoned me?
“Two.” Ignacio held up a pair of fingers toward the pretty waitress.
She nodded and did not meet my gaze.
Was she jealous? I watched her go. She must’ve seen him in here a hundred times, just as I had.
“I don’t know if I should have any more to drink.” I blinked. Though Ignacio danced masterfully, I felt a bit dizzy. A bit…
Disconnected.
“Perhaps something else?” He raised one eyebrow and reached for his jacket pocket. He pulled out his silver lighter and a hand-rolled smoke.
“That isn’t…” I peered closer as the scent wafted over me. It couldn’t be tobacco or marijuana, not unless it’d been blended with something I’d never smelled before.
When he had it lit, he took a long draw before he exhaled blue clouds of sweetness and spice.
/> “That smells wonderful.” I leaned closer to him and tried to draw in the smoke. “What is it?”
“Try a hit?” He offered me the small cigar. “It’s not pot; it’s an herbal mix.”
“Well,” I hedged, pulling away. “I’ve smoked Djarums before but that’s about it.”
“I have them made for me. My supplier calls it ‘Sally’s Blend.’” He proffered it again. “Take it.”
“Oh…” I grinned, tried not to look like a schoolgirl, and reached for the rolled smoke.
Whatever Sally’s Blend was, it peeled the world away from my mind. With one hit, I felt myself expand, felt as if my mind could breathe.
“What?” I leaned back in my seat, stunned. “What the hell is in that?”
“Nothing.” He smiled.
I watched as the world around us crackled, faded.
Ignacio was old, older than time.
Hector’s seemed ancient as well, and for just a moment, I sat convinced this had all happened before.
The world opened up, and everything was dark. I felt like I was falling, like there was water below me.
Ignacio said something else, but I couldn’t follow. Even so, I laughed, and laughed as I’d never laughed before.
I fell.
I waited for the water, cool and dark.
Everyone got thrown in here.
I fell into God.
“Isabella,” Ignacio whispered and leaned closer. “Do you think—”
***
“—there’s any way out,” I spat.
I felt along the walls and fought down panic. My fingers scrabbled against the adobe, desperate.
The room I’d been put in was small. Luckily it wasn’t dank or wet; it just seemed like an average room in any house. The ceilings were a bit on the low side, perhaps, and the windows had been boarded up. Streams of light shone in through the cracks, but when I peered through, I saw only grass.
Inside held sparse furnishings, just a bed and a bucket.
It smelled like church. Frankincense.
“Okay.” I paced back and forth, ran my fingers through my unkempt hair. “Okay, okay…”